Hilly Fields Big Birdwatch 2022 Report

Our Hilly Fields Big Birdwatch on 30 January was the first since January 2020 and we had probably the best ever attendance. It was particularly good to see so many children brought along by their parents and  making bird feeders at the Friends stall or coming round on the guided walk. 

22 species were recorded which is not a record breaker, but still a healthy total. Surprisingly, the highest individual total was the Common Gull of which 22 were counted on the north field. Despite its name, this bird is usually outnumbered by the Black-headed Gull which in winter is the most common gull in London and the UK. Next highest were the Starlings at 16 and Goldfinches at 12. 

Common Gull left, Black-headed Gull right

At the other end of the scale, a single Greenfinch and Redwing were seen. It was good to catch sight of the Nuthatch pair who hopefully will be breeding in the park again this year. We had a good view of them on the Lane during the guided walk. Sadly, no Great Spotted Woodpeckers turned up this year, nor did we see any Song or Mistle Thrushes (though a Song Thrush was seen and heard on the Lane on 1st January).

Greenfinch at Hilly Fields

Thanks are due to Rachel who masterminded the stall as usual, to Sue, Judith, Conrad and Lawrence who helped on the guided walk, to Lee the parkie who lugged stuff around for us, to the cafe for all their support and to Debbie who volunteers with the London Peregrine Partnership and brought along two fine displays of bird feathers for the stall. 

For early risers, we'll be doing a dawn chorus walk on Thursday 31 March, starting from the cafe at 6 am. And in the meantime, our Birds of Hilly Fields booklet can be bought from the cafe or via this link.

RSPB Big Birdwatch 2021

 We've been holding Big Bird Watch events on Hilly Fields on the last Sunday in January since 2009. Alas, Covid-19 put a stop to that this year, but we managed to do a survey on Friday 29 January in two groups of two. Alas again, it rained from start to finish, probably the worst weather that we've ever surveyed in. Water was streaming off the hill. In the circumstances, a count of 19 species was not too shabby, particularly as it included 150 Black-headed Gulls in the north field which is probably a site record, 60 Redwings, 26 Starlings, 25 House Sparrows, 12 Robins and 10 Magpies. Sue also heard a Nuthatch calling and it's good to know that they're still around.  Also recorded were 3 Blackbirds, 3 Blue Tits, 3 Crows, 1 Collared Dove, 7 Common Gulls, 1 Dunnock, 5 Goldfinch, 5 Great Tits, 2 Herring Gulls, 4 Ring-necked Parakeets, 3 Woodpigeons and 1 Wren. We sent our results off to the RSPB for their annual survey.

Black-headed Gull - winter plumage

The reason why we had so many gulls is simple. Rain brings worms to the surface. They listen to the rhythm of the falling rain and slink upward from their burrows. We saw them everywhere on the surface, on paths as well, and the gulls had a feast. Some of the other birds were joining in including the Redwings and Starlings.

Black-headed Gulls breeding plumage in spring

Just a reminder about our new booklet 'Birds of Hilly Fields'. It's been selling well, despite lockdown, and the feedback has been good, but we still have plenty of copies in stock. At present, it's available online (see link below) and can be purchased either by itself at £3.50 or with a tote cotton bag and postcards for £10. We deliver to your door within a radius of 2 miles and all profits go to the Friends of Hilly Fields. It can also be bought from the Hilly Fields cafe when open.

                                       https://supportmylocal.org/store/rachel-mooney/

The Upside Down Bird

In the past, the Nuthatch has been an infrequent visitor to Hilly Fields, but since last September we've seen or heard them on our surveys every month. Now as recounted in the previous post we've discovered that a pair are nesting in the park, which means that new little Nuthatches should soon be on the way. 

Credit: David Chapman

The Nuthatch is about the same size as a House Sparrow. It has a long pointed bill, blue-grey upperparts and buff underparts with chestnut flanks. It also has a long black stripe running through its eye to the back of its head. This and the pointed bill make it easy to identify. According to the RSPB, it is the only British bird which 'descends a tree trunk head first'. Why do Nuthatches go up and down tree trunks? To dig insects out of the bark, which is what the pointed bill is for. They also eat seeds which they store sometimes in cracks in the bark. And believe it or not, Nuthatches eat nuts which they wedge within cracks in the bark and crack open - again with that powerful bill. 

Nuthatch on Hilly Fields just behind the tennis courts

The female on the right is displaying to the male. Mating took place shortly after.

Usually, Nuthatches nest in tree holes and have a well-known habit of plastering the rim of the hole  with mud to reduce its diameter, thus preventing larger birds (eg. Magpies) from stealing the chicks or nestlings. On Hilly Fields, however, they're using one of the newly-installed Schwegler nest boxes which have small predator-proof holes.

The most common call of the nuthatch is easy to remember: a single note rapidly repeated, rather like someone whistling melodiously for their dog. It can be heard from 19 seconds onward in the video below.

Finally, Nuthatches do visit garden bird feeders and can be quite assertive towards other birds while doing so. This picture shows one in Keith Ward's garden which backs onto Hilly Fields. It seems even on feeders they prefer the upside down approach!

Dawn Chorus Walk 2020

Rupert King has provided this report on the two person Dawn Chorus Walk on 2 April!
Sadly, as with so many community events, the 2020 Dawn Chorus Walk around Hilly Fields Park had to be cancelled. So instead I met Rachel at 6.00am in the Shade Garden (next to the Bowling Club) to do our own Dawn Chorus Walk – while maintaining social distancing of course! It was a chilly start, overcast but still. The first songbirds we encountered were a blackbird, a robin, a wren and a dunnock, while a great tit called loudly above us. As we moved south along the perimeter path we came upon the large flock of resident sparrows busily chattering away in the dense bushes that line the rear gardens. Such a joyful sound!

The walk began to liven up as we reached the southeast boundary of the park with its rich mix of trees and shrubs: a song thrush singing loudly, some wood pigeons cooing softly and a greater spotted woodpecker hammering out his message across the park. We saw a small flock of redwings – winter visitors that will soon be flying north back to Scandinavia.

By the time we reached the Nature Area (south of the Stone Circle) the sun was rising – there was a brief blaze of colour on the eastern horizon before the sun disappeared behind a bank of cloud. As we hoped the Nature Area provided a proper chorus of birdsong this time including two rival blackcaps, a chiffchaff (our first summer visitors) and some twittering goldfinches. We were very pleased to see that a pair of great tits is now building a nest in a new Schwegler nest box – just 2 weeks after it was put up!

Male Blackcap

As we listened intently to the birds we couldn’t help but notice how quiet the background noise was for a change. Just two planes passed overheard during our walk and traffic along the busy Adelaide Avenue has been reduced to a trickle.

Male Chaffinch

We carried on up Eastern Road with its rich mix of hawthorn and bramble scrub – perfect habitat for birds! Plenty of birdlife here and we discovered a wood pigeon sitting on a nest concealed in ivy. As we reached the top of the road we came upon two male chaffinches behaving very differently: one singing from a tree, the other attacking its own reflection in the wing mirror of a parked car! I have seen this obsessive behaviour before with dunnocks and pied wagtails. Indeed the bird was so obsessed we were able to approach to within a few feet to record it. When we saw a female chaffinch nearby we wondered aloud which male she might prefer?!

The highlight of our walk was undoubtedly the sight of two noisy nuthatches who have taken over another Schwegler nest box near the tennis courts. This is a remarkable development. Personally I only started seeing nuthatches for the first time in the park and nearby cemetery last autumn. Now they are nesting in the park!

Nuthatch at nestbox

During our walk we also saw several carrion crows (two pairs are nesting in the park), magpies, ring necked parakeets, starlings and blue tits. On our return to the Shade Garden we saw a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers and a solitary stock dove high up in the canopy – a bit of a rarity in the park. So in all we saw 21 bird species and heard a lot of birdsong. A successful walk and a delightful way to start the day!

The Birds Are Still Singing

Everywhere is closed except for supermarkets. Everything has been cancelled or 'postponed' while we hide from Covid-19. Brockley Max has been postponed until August ('fingers crossed'). The BrocSoc Midsummer Fayre has been postponed until autumn ('hopefully'). And now to top it all the Friends of Hilly Fields Dawn Chorus Walk has been cancelled. Not postponed. Not resting. Cancelled. It is an ex-walk. There is no dawn chorus to be heard in August or autumn - it's a thing of the spring. But if we're very, very lucky, we might be able to hold one next year.

The Lane

The good news is that the birds are still singing. The residents such as Blackbird, Robin, Song Thrush and Wren can be heard every day on Hilly Fields and have been joined by the usual spring migrant warblers - Blackcap and Chiffchaff. And even more good news, we seem to have a resident pair of Nuthatches who've been seen and heard regularly over the last few weeks. Hopefully, they will nest in the park. So why not go up there on your daily exercise walk and have a listen? It doesn't have to be at dawn, but morning is the best time. A good place to hear the warblers is the lane that runs into the park from Eastern Road with all the trees on either side and the little wood beside it.

If you fancy learning a few bird songs to while away the time, there are loads of recordings on You Tube and the RSPB's website has audio recordings of all British birds along with identification features. A good one to start with is the Chiffchaff which has a simple repetitive song of staccato notes as per above. It's unforgettable. Listen to it on the web, then listen to it on Hilly Fields, but hurry. In the last two years, it hasn't hung around for very long. After that, you can try the more varied and melodious songs of the Blackcap and Song Thrush. Good luck and don't forget the social distancing! I'm going back into my bunker now.

Big Birdwatch 2020: The Results

This year's big birdwatch took place on the morning of 26th January. The sky was overcast most of the time, but the weather was mild and about a dozen people came with us on the guided walk. We spent a hour walking through most areas of the park and saw 24 species which is not a record, but a  respectable tally. The highlights were a pair of nuthatches and 15 Redwing all seen in the east field.

The nuthatch has blue-grey upperparts, buff underparts, a black stripe across the side of its head and a long pointed bill which it uses to dig insects out of tree trunks. It is very agile and the only British bird that can descend a tree trunk head first. There are better photos on the web, but the one above (taken in Sydenham Hill Wood a few years ago) shows it in action. It has a distinctive call which can be listened to on the RSPB website. The fact that we saw two together is a hopeful sign that they will nest and breed in the park this coming spring.

Redwings on Hilly Fields: 2018

The Big Birdwatch is the first time we've seen Redwing in the park this winter. Redwings are thrushes which migrate here in the autumn from Scandinavia and depart in the early spring. Berries and fruits are their food of choice but when those are running out, they'll make do with worms and insects. The red under the wing which gives them their name is not always as obvious as in the above photo, but the white stripe arching over the eye is another distinctive feature.

The rest of the count as recorded on the Big Birdwatch Blackboard is as follows: 35 Black-headed Gull, 20 Starling, 12 Common Gull, 10 Goldfinch, 10 House Sparrow, 5 each of Great Tit, Robin and Woodpigeon, 4 each of Blue Tit, Crow and Ring-necked Parakeet, 3 each of Feral Pigeon and Magpie, 2 each of Blackbird and Chaffinch, 1 each of Coal Tit, Collared Dove, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Long-tailed Tit, Song Thrush and Wren.

 Rachel and Emily did a sterling job on the Big Birdwatch Table outside the cafe and persuaded numerous children to make seedballs which hung from nearby trees at the end of the event. Thanks to the 'other bird champion' Sue and to Conrad, Lawrence and Rupert for lending their expertise, to Judith from Glendale for her support and to the cafe as always just for being there. Our Dawn Chorus Walk will be on Thursday 2nd April at 6.00 am. See you there!

Falcon Over the Fields

Our monthly bird survey on 27 September was almost over, when Conrad spotted a Hobby being chased by Crows over the north field. We had only a brief glimpse at first, but it reappeared having shaken off its pursuers and spent five minutes gliding and swooping over the park. The Hobby has long wings for its body size and catches most of its prey in flight, so its aerial abilities are quite special. It feeds mainly on small birds (though it does catch Swifts) and insects including dragonflies. In this case it was feeding around the plane trees that line Hilly Fields Crescent and we saw it transfer an insect from claw to beak in mid-flight. The plumage was not as dark as usual, so our bird may have been a juvenile. It was either too high or too fast to get a photograph - the image below is from the NatureSpot website.

Photo: Chris Lythall

The Hobby is one of four wild falcons which can be seen in Britain. The other three - Peregrine, Kestrel and Merlin - are resident all year round, whereas the Hobby is a spring migrant which flies here from Africa to breed in our cooler climate and returns in autumn. The hobby we saw will be away any day now. Its scientific name is Falco subbuteo and yes - the fingertip football game Subbuteo is named after it. Its inventor Peter Adolph was a bird lover and first tried to patent the game under the name of 'The Hobby'. When that was turned down as being too general, he used the species name instead which in Latin means 'near to' (sub) 'a buzzard' (buteo).

We recorded twenty other species that day which is a good record for the time of year. These were 14 Woodpigeons, 11 Feral Pigeons and 11 Magpies, 5 Robins (at least), 4 Great Tits, 3 each of Blackbirds, Blue Tits, Crows, Goldfinches, Jays and Wrens, 2 each of Black-headed Gulls, House Martins (passing over) and Song Thrushes, 1 each of  Chiffchaff, Herring Gull, House Sparrow, Nuthatch, Ring-necked Parakeet and Starling. The Hobby can be celebrated as the 51st species on our list, but let me also put in a word for the Crows. They tend to get taken for granted but are vigilant birds and defenders of the realm and they do draw attention to birds of prey.

Carrion Crow on Hilly Fields, 27-9-19

The Big Five-O

After more than ten years surveying birds on Hilly Fields, we have recorded our 49th and 50th species: a Redstart and a Linnet. The Redstart (a summer migrant) was a one-off sighting on the Cliffview Road edge of the park. The Linnet (a member of the Finch family) was seen in the same area and then heard singing for 2-3 weeks afterwards from one of the long Veda Road gardens that back onto the park. It may have nested and bred there. A revised list is at the end of this post. Thanks to Rachel Mooney and her neighbour Eddy on Cliffview Road for reporting these sightings. The images below are from the website of Bob Jones, aka Bob the Birder.

Redstart

Linnet

The results of our monthly survey in June are as follows:

6 Blackbirds, 3 Blackcaps, 1 Blue Tit, 7 Crows, 1 Collared Dove, 6 Goldfinches, 1 Great Tit, 1 Greenfinch, 1 House Sparrow, 2 Magpies, 1 Nuthatch, 1 Ring-necked Parakeet, 3 Robins, 2 Song Thrushes, 1 Swift, 4 Woodpigeons, 8 Wrens and 2 Starlings. 

A total of 18 species which is good considering that the main breeding season has come to an end and bird life in the park is calming down. It was particularly nice to see and hear the Song Thrushes and to hear the Nuthatch. Nuthatches have been seen on at least one local bird feeder, so presumably have nested somewhere in the neighbourhood.

Song Thrush

BIRDS OF HILLY FIELDS: 2007-2019

Everyday

1. Blackbird

2. Black-headed Gull

3. Blue Tit

4. Carrion Crow

5. Common Gull

6. Goldfinch

7. Great Tit

8. House Sparrow

9. Magpie

10. Ring-necked Parakeet

11. Robin

12. Woodpigeon

13. Wren

Regular

14. Blackcap

15. Chaffinch

16. Chiffchaff

17. Common Swift

18. Dunnock

19. Feral Pigeon

20. Great Spotted Woodpecker

21. Greenfinch

22. Jay

23. Long-tailed Tit

24. Mistle Thrush

25. Pied Wagtail

26. Starling

Occasional

27. Coal Tit

28. Collared Dove

29. Fieldfare

30. Goldcrest

31. Green Woodpecker

32. Herring Gull

33. House Martin

34. Kestrel

35. Lesser Black-backed Gull

36. Nuthatch

37. Redwing

38. Song Thrush

39. Sparrowhawk

40. Stock Dove

41. Tawny Owl (heard, not seen)

42. Willow Warbler

Rare*

43. Bullfinch

44. Cuckoo (heard not seen)

45. Linnet

46. Little Owl

47. Mallard

48. Redstart

49. Short-eared Owl

50. Spotted Flycatcher

* = rare on Hilly Fields, not nationwide

Nuthatch Saves the Day

30 June: starting as usual from the lower Vicar's Hill entrance, Sue and I worked our way along the Veda Road border, following 'the secret path' (as children call it) between tall grass and cow parsley. It was very quiet in the trees, reflecting the fact that for most birds the breeding season is drawing towards a close. Around the wood, however, and the upper Eastern Road area, a Blackcap and two Chiffchaffs were singing continuously, so for them it's not all over yet. The RSPB says of both these species that 'pairs nesting in the south of England' may have a second brood. Perhaps the singing birds were keeping in touch with each other, either from the nest or from wherever they happened to be searching for food. We also saw a Pied Wagtail looking for insects in the grass among the ancient boulders of the stone circle

But we weren't finding very much and were reconciling ourselves to a low count when we entered the 'shade garden' between the bowling green and the bothy. There, within a few minutes, we had a remarkable haul: a Nuthatch, a Jay, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Mistle Thrush and a family of 8 very lively Long-tailed Tits, most of them recently fledged little 'uns. At one point, it felt as if we'd stepped into a Disney film as the cute tweeting Tits raced around the trunk of a conifer tree. The Nuthatch is not a common visitor to Hilly Fields so it was great to see one again. It is the only British bird that can climb down a tree trunk head first in its search for insects within the bark.

This raised our total to a respectable 19. In addition to those birds already mentioned, we saw and/or heard 4 Robins and 4 Wrens, 3 Blackbirds, 2 each of Swift, Collared Dove, Woodpigeon, Magpie and 1 each of Blue Tit, Crow, Great Tit and House Sparrow. So the everyday birds were scarce but the less common birds made up for it. And, for once, we didn't see or hear a single parakeet. What a shame.

It Ain't Half Quiet

Time drifts on and we approach another transitional point in the bird year. The sounds of silence, or at least quietness, are upon us. There are still cheeps and chirps and calls to be heard out there, but song is on the way out. The 'dawn chorus' this morning consisted of a single Wren and some Herring Gulls mewing in the distance. The Blackbird which has been heard from 3.45 am during June and early July is resting its vocal cord and will not be singing again until next year. Likewise, Thrushes and Dunnocks. The Robin is also silent while it undergoes its moulting period, but it will sing again during the autumn. The breeding season is almost over.

Wren in my garden 

It wasn't quite so quiet when Sue, Terry and I did our monthly survey of Hilly Fields on a hot and windless 22nd July, but it was getting there. We heard a Blackcap sing for a short spell in the wood by Eastern Rd and a Chaffinch holding forth again from a tree near the school (see last month's post). But the only bird really belting it out was the Wren - several of them, in fact, repeatedly. Could this have been an avian lonely hearts club band? At a mere 10 cm in length (max), the Wren is almost Britain's smallest bird (beaten to that title by the Goldcrest and Firecrest) and is certainly our most common bird (click for link) with an estimated population of over 17 million. For such a small bird (weighing as little as a £1 coin), the Wren with its famous cocked tail is quite stocky and emits a loud and powerful five second song. Here's a You Tube clip...

The other striking feature of Hilly Fields bird life at the moment is the number of juvenile birds which is of course to be expected. The most significant was a young Chiffchaff which Terry spotted in the Eastern Rd hawthorns. We also saw one of the adults. This is good news for it means that the birds have bred in the park which is a "first" as far as we are aware in the six year duration of the bird champion scheme. In the past, Chiffchaffs have been heard only at the beginning or end of their migratory period. This year, two of them stayed around to mate and raise at least one little one. There were plenty of juvenile Tits as well, their colouring not yet as rich as their parents, and I spent some time tracking a young Robin which had not yet acquired its red breast, but it was hard to get decent photos of any of these small birds through all the foliage. The best image I could manage is the juvenile Wood Pigeon below which hasn't yet gained the white collar or the plumpness of its elders. It reminds me of that old chestnut of a question: why do you never see baby pigeons? The answer is because you don't look in their nests! Baby pigeons are fed such a rich diet by their parents and grow so fast as nestlings that by the time they fledge, they're as big as their mum and dad, or almost.

Juvenile 'Woodie'

We saw 17 species in total during our two hour walkabout. We also saw butterflies galore - in fact, thanks to the prolonged sunshine, urban green spaces are alive with them at present which makes it a great time to do the Big Butterfly Count (click for link). On Hilly Fields, the wildflower meadow is full of Meadow Browns while you might also see the Burnet 6 Spot, an attractive day flying moth, and you will certainly see a lot of very busy bees. In the wood and Eastern Rd area, the lovely Speckled Wood butterfly can be found.

Meadow Brown on Tansy in the wildflower meadow

Speckled Wood in the wood

STOP PRESS - Sue did another Hilly Fields walkabout on 30 July - 17 species seen including four Mistle Thrushes. Normally, we see two so it's safe to assume that they have successfully bred. She also heard a Nuthatch - an occasional visitor - and saw House Martins flying overhead with Swifts. A good result.

Happy Solstice!

In view of the Xmas festivities, Sue and I brought our survey of Hilly Fields bird life forward this month and walked around the park on 19th December - a grey, chilly Monday morning which ended in rain. Despite these conditions, it was worthwhile in terms of the range of species seen.

Winter has brought more gulls inland and Hilly Fields had both Black-headed and Common Gulls in small mixed flocks. The simplest way of telling these two apart (given that the Black-headed gull has a white head at this time of year!) is by the colour of legs and bill: red = Black-headed Gull, yellow = Common Gull. If you can't make out the colours, then the Common Gull has a darker back, is slightly larger and  seems to hold itself more erect when walking on the ground. It also lacks the black mark behind the eye which is an easy winter identifier of the Black-headed Gull.

Common gull and black-headed gull together

The Starlings have grown in number since last month - there were at least fifty moving around the park today. We also saw a dozen Crows descend on a tree on the border of the Stones field - not quite enough for a "Parliament" (one of the collective names for Crows), more like a Select Committee. We also caught sight of that colourful corvid, the Jay - one at first in the wood and then two in the trees around the tennis courts and briefly on the ground hopping forward in slow deliberate fashion.

Jay

The upper part of Eastern Road was so alive with birds that it was difficult to keep track. The family of Blackbirds was there again (see 1 November post), along with Great Tits, Blue Tits, Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Chaffinches. From time to time, the finches swooped down to drink from the gutter which is, in effect, their watering trough. Most rewarding of all was a pair of Nuthatches, heard and then seen in the trees and even perched on a lamppost. It was unusual to find them close to the centre of the park as previous sightings have been on the eastern edge and in the adjoining Cliffview back gardens (see 15 July post).

Also recorded were a Great Spotted Woodpecker (seen flying overhead by Sue), several singing Robins, Magpies, one or two Ring-necked Parakeets, four House Sparrows in the Cliffview hedge (as usual), a resurgence of Woodpigeons (19 in total) and a few Feral Pigeons. Oh - and not forgetting the Mistle Thrush perched high in a tree on the Stones field border and driven off at one point by a smaller bird - probably a Great Tit. It flew to another tree further along and was heard to emit a few feeble phrases of song, almost as if it was too much trouble.

By contrast, a Wren burst briefly into full-blooded melody near Eastern Road - "a cascade of notes...ending with a loud and distinctive trill" as my RSPB Handbook puts it. And a Great Tit gave

Great tit

a warming-up performance of it's famous two note song. It never sounds to me like "teacher teacher", but that's how the bird books describe it. And it will drive us all mad in the weeks and months to come.

But for now - Happy Solstice, Happy Xmas, Happy New Year!

A Nuthatch!

June/July is the rainy season in the north of Scotland and this year we had to take avoiding action more often than usual by driving on to the next glen or loch whenever the rain approached. It was not a good year for birds either, the list of what we didn't see being longer than those we did.

Nuthatch (RSPB)

So imagine our joy and surprise when a Nuthatch landed on our feeder the day after our return home! He's now a regular visitor and we see him almost every day.

This is the best I could do with my compact camera and Photoshop

Our garden backs onto the park, so he's probably nesting somewhere in the park.